Why the World Is Rebelling Against ‘Experts’An unconventional, sometimes incoherent, resistance arises to the elites who keep explaining why changes that hurt the middle class are actually for its own good.

The Great Rebellion is on and where it leads nobody knows.

Its expressions range from Brexit to the Trump phenomena and includes neo-nationalist and unconventional insurgent movement around the world. It shares no single leader, party or ideology. Its very incoherence, combined with the blindness of its elite opposition, has made it hard for the established parties across what’s left of the democratic world to contain it.

What holds the rebels together is a single idea: the rejection of the neo-liberal crony capitalist order that has arisen since the fall of the Soviet Union. For two decades, this new ruling class could boast of great successes: rising living standards, limited warfare, rapid technological change and an optimism about the future spread of liberal democracy. Now, that’s all fading or failing.

Living standards are stagnating, vicious wars raging, poverty-stricken migrants pouring across borders and class chasms growing. Amidst this, the crony capitalists and their bureaucratic allies have only grown more arrogant and demanding. But the failures of those who occupy what Lenin called “the commanding heights” are obvious to most of the citizens on whose behalf they claim to speak and act.

The Great Rebellion draws on five disparate and sometimes contradictory causes that find common ground in frustration with the steady bureaucratic erosion of democratic self-governance: class resentment, racial concerns, geographic disparities, nationalism, cultural identity. Each of these strains appeals to different constituencies, but together they are creating a political Molotov cocktail.

Class Conflict

The Brexit vote reflected the class aspect of the Rebellion. The London Times post-election analysis , notes socialist author James Heartfield, found the upper classes 57 percent for remain, the upper middle class fairly divided, while everyone below them went roughly two-thirds for leave. It doesn’t get much plainer than that.

This dissent reflect the consequences of the globalization celebrated by elites in both parties. Britain’s industrial workforce, once the wonder of the world, is half as large as it was as just two decades ago. The social status of the British worker, even among the Labour grandees who pay them lip service, has been greatly diminished, notes scholar Dick Hobbs, himself a product of blue collar east London. “There are parts of London,” he writes, “where the pubs are the only economy.”

As labor has struggled, writes Heartfield, “the Labour Party became more distant, metropolitan and elitist. It sought to re-write the party’s policy to mirror its own concerns, and also to diminish working people’s aspirations for social democratic reform in their favour. “

A similar scenario has emerged here in America, where corporations—especially those making consumer goods—have grown fat on access to Chinese, Mexican and other foreign labor. Like their British counterparts, the U.S. working class is falling into social chaos, with declining marriage and church attendance rates, growing drug addiction, poor school performance and even declining life expectancy. Even during the primary campaign, as both Sanders and Trump railed against globalization United Technologies saw fit to announce the movement of a large plant form Indianapolis, where about 1,500 jobs were lost, to Monterrey.

And much as the leave wave crested in just those parts of the U.K. where trade with Europe is highest, so is Trump support highest in the Southern states that now dominate what remains of American manufacturing.

Race and Ethnicity

Ethnic minorities and immigrants have now become core constituents of progressive parties in many countries—the Socialists in France, the British Labour Party and the Democratic Party here in America. In Britain, it never occurred to party’s leaders that most new jobs created during the Blair and Brown regimes went to newcomers. One can admire the pluck of Polish plumbers, Latvian barmaids, Greek waiters and French technicians and still note that many of these jobs could have gone to native born British. This includes the children of the mostly non-white commonwealth immigrants who are now part of the country’s national culture.

The parallels in America—a much larger, richer and more diverse country—are striking. Silicon Valley and corporate America loves to bring in glorified indentured servants from abroad, earning the assent of Hillary Clinton and the corporate shill wing of the GOP. Only Trump and Sanders have attacked this program, which has cost even trained American workers their jobs.

As tends to occur when race and ethnicity intrude, ugliness here seeps into the Great Rebellion. Trump has consciously and irresponsibly stoked ethnic resentments tied to immigration. Anti-EU continental Europeans— notably in eastern Europe but also France’s Marine Le Pen— often outdo our TV billionaire’s provocations.

Geographic Disparities

The Brexit vote also revealed a chasm between the metropolitan core and the rest of the country. The urban centers of London, Manchester and Liverpool all voted Remain. Central London has benefited from being where the world’s super rich park their money. The devastation of the industrial economy in the periphery has hardly touched the posh precincts of the premier global city.

In contrast the more distant, often working class, suburbs of London and other cities voted to Leave. Small towns followed suit. The Brexit vote, suggests analyst Aaron Renn, demonstrated that arrogant urbanites, seeing themselves as the exclusive centers of civilization, ignore those who live outside the “glamour zone” at their own peril.

Similar voting patterns can be seen in the US. The countryside, except for retirement havens of the rich, has gone way to the right. The suburbs are tilting that way, and could become more rebellious as aggressive “disparate impact” policies force communities to reshape themselves to meet HUD’s social engineering standards —for example if they are too middle class or too white—even if there is no proof of actual discrimination.

Needless to say, such policies could enhance the geographic base of the Great Rebellion, including among middle=class minorities who are now responsible for much of our current suburban growth. Already the small towns and outer suburbs have signed up with Trump; if he can make clear the threat to suburbia from the planners, he could, despite his boorish ugliness, win these areas and the election.

Nationalism and Cultural Identity

Nationalism gets a bad rap in Europe, for historically sound reasons. Yet these national cultures also have produced much of the world’s great literature and music, and the world’s most beautiful cities. Yet in contemporary Europe, these national cultures are diminishing. Instead the crony capitalist regime gives us Rem Koolhaas’ repetitious generic city, often as stultifying as the most mindless suburban mall.Not just buildings, but historic values are also being undermined, as universities and even grade schools seek to replace cherished values with post-modernist, politically correct formulations. English students at Yale protest having to read Chaucer, Shakespeare or Milton, the foundation writers of the world’s common language whose greatest sin, it appears, was to be both English and male.

Of course, cultural and political nationalism often shows an ugly side. But everyone who shouts for the British national soccer team or chants USA at the Olympics is not a fascist; they are just people who love their country. Yet academia, the shaper of the young and impressionable, now sometimes regard any positive assessment of America as the land of opportunity or even the American flag as “micro-aggressions.” Brits and Americans have much to be ashamed about in their history, but their glorious achievements remain inspirational to many, who find attempts to replace them with some tortured global syncretism foolish and counterproductive.

Governance and Localism

When Brits told pollsters why they had voted to leave the EU, notes James Heartfield, immigration and national identity ranked high but democracy and self-governance was at the top of the list. In contrast, classes who supported remain—the mainstream media, academia, the legal and financial establishments—increasingly see themselves as rightful rulers, the benighted masses be damned.This anti-EU rebellion is hardly limited to Britain. Since 2005 French, Danish and Dutch voters have voted against closer EU ties. Hostility to the EU, as recorded by Pew, is actually stronger in many key European countries, including France, than it is in Britain. And after the Brexit vote, there are already moves for similar exit referenda in several European countries.

But like Washington bureaucrats who can’t be bothered to pay much attention to the views of the underlings of the Heartland, the Eurocrats want to double down. But like Washington bureaucrats who can’t be bothered to pay much attention to the views of the underlings of the Heartland, the Eurocrats want to double down. The Germans, the effective rulers of Europe, have reacted to Brexit with talk about ways to “deepen” the EU, creating the basis for what some have argued would be essentially “a superstate”. This policy approach seems about as brilliant as that of Lord North, whose response to American agitation was to further tighten London’s screws. That certainly worked well.— bringing to mind Lord North, who responded to colonial agitation by further tightening London’s screws.

This arrogance, in part, stems froms what one writer at the Atlantic has called the war on the stupid. In this formulation, those with elite degrees, including the hegemons on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, dismiss local control as rule by the Yahoos. The progressive ideal of government by experts—sometimes seen as “the technocracy”—may sounds good in Palo Alto or London, but often promise a dim future for the middle class. Expert regulation, often with green goals in mind, take hard-earned gains like car and home ownership and cheap air travel all but out of reach for the middle class, while keeping them around for the globe-trotting elites.

Where does this go

The Great Rebellion is, if nothing else, political incoherent.

Some conservatives hail it as a harbinger of the decline of progressivism. Traditional leftists hope for the return of state socialism, directed from national capitals. Racists see a vindication for their world view. Libertarians hail de-regulation while others, on the nationalist right, embrace the authoritarian nationalism of Vladimir Putin.

Yet for all its divergent views, the Great Rebellion has accomplished this: the first serious blow to the relentless ascendency of neo-liberal crony capitalism. The revels have put the issue of the super-state and the cause of returning power closer to the people back on the agenda. The Great Rebellion allows localities relief from overweening regulations, cities to be as urban as they want, and the periphery choose how they wish to develop.

The Rebellion also allows us to move beyond enforced standards of racial “balance” and reparations , replacing the chaos of unenforced borders and enforced “diversity” with something more gradual and organic in nature. Our hope on race and ethnicity lies not in rule-making from above , but in allowing the multiculturalism of the streets to occur, as is rapidly does, in suburban schoolyards, soccer pitches and Main Streets across the Western world.

National cultures do not need to be annihilated but allowed to evolve. In Texas, California, and across the southwestern, Spanish phraseology, Mexican food and music are already very mainstream. Without lectures from the White House or preening professors, African-American strains will continue to define our national culture, particularly in the south. In Europe, few object to couscous on bistro menus, falafel on the streets and, in Britain, the obligatory curry at the pub.

The Great Rebellion is much more than the triumph of nativism, stupidity and crudeness widely denounced in the mainstream media. Ethnic integration and even globalization will continue, but shaped by the wishes of democratic peoples, not corporate hegemons or bureaucratic know-it-alls. We can now once again aspire to a better world—better because it will be one that people, not autocrats, have decided to make.

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Dagny, this is not a battle over material goods. It's a moral crisis, the greatest the world has ever faced and the last. Our age is the climax of centuries of evil. We must put an end to it, once and for all, or perish - we, the men of the mind. It was our own guilt. We produced the wealth of the world - but we let our enemies write its moral code.

Brexit sheds light on the problems created when the idea of direct democracy is abused. In our complex 21st century world, we have no choice but to delegate authority for most decision-making to our elected representatives.

SPIEGEL: You have said that politicians in London should be given the possibility to rethink the consequences of withdrawing from the EU. It sounds as if you are hoping they will change their minds.

Altmaier: At the moment, that seems rather unlikely. But reflection is taking place everywhere -- for example what it means to reverse 40 years of integration, to leave the single market or to lose influence over how it is shaped. British institutions should be given the possibility to discuss these consequences.

SPIEGEL: There is a tradition in the EU of simply holding multiple referenda until you get the desired result.

Altmaier: You're hinting at the votes in Ireland on the Treaty of Nice and the Treaty of Lisbon. The EU didn't have the votes repeated, Ireland did so itself. Germany's constitution does not permit such referenda for good reasons.

SPIEGEL: Horst Seehofer, the head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, has been advocating strongly to change that.

Altmaier: I think it is right for us to continue to be reserved at the federal level about plebiscitary elements -- especially if such decisions have direct effects on other countries, as is the case with Britain right

I actually agree that referenda are clumsy and brutal. I also think that parliamentary democracy is the preferred solution.

But parliamentary democracy needs to be representative democracy or it fails. It cannot be simply an opportunity for the heirs of the Medici, the Valois, the Hapsburgs and the Stewarts to operate as usual under the guise of democracy. Referenda are a key component in ensuring that parliamentarians are representative.

The notion expressed here in these articles, in my opinion, has it entirely backwards. Referenda, when held, need to address the big issues - and not be limited to whether or not cats will wear bells in the street.

The old Houses of Europe never left.

PS - I find it curious that Adolf Hitler (May Godwin's name be praised) is continually raised as an argument against democracy. Presumably rule by Junkers is preferable.

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"Wyrd bið ful aræd"

"If change isn’t allowed to be a process, it becomes an event." - Penny Mordaunt 10/10/2019

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

"You are my friend. I respect the fact that you want Theresa May to be PM. It is overwhelmingly likely that she will be. And if she does I will sleep easily at night. But I am seriously frightened about the risk of allowing Andrea Leadsom onto the membership ballot. What if Theresa stumbles? Are we really confident that the membership won't vote for a fresh face who shares their attitudes about much of modern life? Like they did with IDS [Iain Duncan Smith]. I am not asking you to respond unless you positively want to have a chat. But I hope that you will reflect on this carefully. Michael doesn't mind spending 2 months taking a good thrashing from Theresa if that's what it takes but in the party's interest and the national interest surely we must work together to stop AL[Andrea Leadsom]? xNick"

Apparently the Parliamentary Party of the Tories is at odds with its membership's world view. Much like the Parliamentary Party of Labour is at odds with its membership.

Both the Tories and the Socialists have lost contact with their bases (Middle Britain?) and left the institutional shells of the parties as battlegrounds for "extremists" - authoritarians of the left and right, in my opinion.

Disengagement of the public from politics results in a non-representative parliament.

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"Wyrd bið ful aræd"

"If change isn’t allowed to be a process, it becomes an event." - Penny Mordaunt 10/10/2019

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

A Tale of Two CitiesELIOT A. COHENBritain has decided that London won’t be Brussels. Other responses to the failure of Western elites may not be so mannerly.

“As big as Agincourt,” said one pro-Brexit friend of mine, a highly intellectual former soldier of an admittedly enthusiastic type. “Well, maybe make that Suez,” he said after a pause, “but in any case, the biggest political event here of my lifetime.” Arriving in London immediately after the vote that will carry Britain out of the European Union I was inclined to agree.

The pros and cons of Brexit are complicated; reasonable people could and did disagree. But what was most interesting was the reaction to a vote outcome unpredicted by the pollsters or, just as important these days, the betting parlors. In London, and throughout most of Britain’s upper-middle class world, the quality press, and the political establishment—the Great and the Good, in short—the result was not disappointment but curious combination of despair, hysteria, and quiet elation.

Much of the outcry against Brexit was not merely despondent, but, as my Twitter feed revealed, unqualified in its belief that the vote was a catastrophe. Equally unambiguous was the contempt expressed for those on the other side. The professors, business people, and journalists making remarks about the “lizard brain of the British people” had no visible inclination to do what some American conservatives appalled by the rise of Trump have realized they need to do, namely, figure out why a majority of their countrymen went for a choice they consider dangerously crazy.

What also appeared was a manifestation of a nasty class-based bigotry, as acid and ugly as anything an 18th-century aristocrat might have expressed for an uppity cobbler who presumed to have a political opinion. It was manifested most clearly, in London at any rate, by the gilded young who immediately began snarling at the old and the working class who voted for Brexit, and talking—emptily, most likely—about leaving London for elsewhere.

The larger phenomenon here, however, is a crisis not of ignorant masses, but of elites who have failed. All societies, except perhaps the Greek city-states of antiquity, are led by elites or, as the great sociologist Digby Baltzell described them, establishments. As long as they provide their societies with some consequential benefit (prosperity, success in war, or political leadership), can absorb talented non-elite members, and display virtues that the rest of society values (public service, self-sacrifice, or military courage) they deserve to hang on and do.

The elites of London, like those of this country and large parts of the Western world, appear in many ways to have failed those tests. The crash of 2008 crystallized a view of the financial class in particular as reckless, self-dealing manipulators. As Joel Kotkin among others has pointed out, by virtue of how our education systems have evolved, elite youth increasingly marry one another, and the prosperous can (and do) give their children every leg up—which poorer parents cannot hope to match. Meanwhile, the political and intellectual elites deserve, and receive, very little credit for patriotism or courage, because they do not exhibit much. As manifested on campuses in Great Britain as here, they increasingly show themselves intolerant of dissenting opinions, and inclined to bully because they have forgotten (or never learned) how to argue.

The failure of courage, Solzhenitsyn said at a particularly dark point in the Cold War, was in danger of becoming a distinguishing feature of the West. The young people who talked petulantly of abandoning their country because of a vote they did not like were bright graduates of the best universities in the English-speaking world—and severely deficient in pluck. They had no notion of that patriotism which says that when your country is in trouble, you are supposed to fight it out, not begin checking to see if Morgan Stanley is hiring in Madrid. They are not fit to be trusted with political power.

And in the very intemperateness of their reaction lies one of the best reasons to think that Brexit is, with all its hazards, a good thing. The London of today was sliding into becoming a bigger, brighter, and more lively Brussels—so international that it had no discernible identity; so cosmopolitan in its self-understanding that it had no pride in its own history and unique character; so unwilling to accept the burdens of self-government that it preferred the administration of well-meaning but unaccountable bureaucrats to the crash and bang of democracy in action. The poison of Brussels-style Euro-politics had clearly infected those Londoners whose first impulse was to do what European politicians have done for decades: compel the lower classes who have voted the wrong way to vote again until they do the thing their betters thought they ought to have done in the first place.

At the end of the day, however, and despite the views expressed by the leaders of all the major political parties, the flagship newspapers, and most of the intellectual class, Brexit won. Bloody-mindedness probably helped. President Obama’s meddling in British politics by arguing for “remain” inadvertently assisted the campaign for “leave.” There were, it turned out, politicians and intellectuals ready to make the case for Brexit. Today, millions of Brits rightly think that they are reclaiming independence and sovereignty that had been leaching away to an amorphous and corrupt European federation cracking under the strain of multiple crises.

And although it may be rocky, it will probably work, despite the scaremongering and the doomsaying. European politicians have threatened, in effect, to punish Britain for leaving by withholding the free market if Britain does not accept all of the European Union’s rules—but their own record of yielding to pressure, ignoring their own commitments, and going back on their word suggests that in the end, they will bend. Great Britain has a larger and healthier economy than France. It cannot be coerced the way Norway was into accepting all of the European Union’s rules. U.S. politicians may even (and should) quietly remind Europe’s leaders that our sympathies are with the country whose language, literature, and legal system shaped our own, and whose armed forces are one of our most valued partners.

The Scottish nationalists, who are no longer a majority in the Scottish Parliament, may try to secede, but if they do they will have to lead Scotland into a European Union in worsening turmoil, some of whose members bitterly oppose secessionist nationalisms like theirs (e.g. Spain fearful of the Catalan independence movement), and which will not have the money to replace the billions of pounds in English subsidies that keep the Scottish welfare state afloat. As for the banks, some will no doubt reallocate staff elsewhere in Europe, but London was an epic financial center before the European Union existed, and will remain so because of the power of British rule of law, the attractiveness of the city, its physical location, and the ubiquity of English as the international language.

Brexit, like the rise of Trump, can be interpreted as a manifestation of the failure of elites, but it is a far healthier phenomenon. The Brits of 2016 are not the Brits of 1940, but if Britain could handle Philip II of Spain and Napoleon, the Kaiser and Hitler, it can probably cope with the temper tantrums of Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission. Meanwhile, Brussels is locked into a political system that seems doomed to stasis. Brexit will have second- and third-order effects in a Europe that is economically stagnant, incapable of coping with a vast migration crisis, unable to defend itself against a much-poorer Russia to its East, and rattled by Islamist terrorists from the forgotten neighborhoods. The Brits have merely acted on sentiments shared by many Europeans; the revolt of the latter may be a lot nastier than the more orderly decision of the former.

Brexit was a courageous thing to do. If it succeeds it may mark a change not only in the structure of Europe, but in the character of our societies and those who lead them. If that is so, the British will once again, as so often in the past, set a course for others to follow, and we should cheer them on.

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Dagny, this is not a battle over material goods. It's a moral crisis, the greatest the world has ever faced and the last. Our age is the climax of centuries of evil. We must put an end to it, once and for all, or perish - we, the men of the mind. It was our own guilt. We produced the wealth of the world - but we let our enemies write its moral code.

EUROPEAN Union (EU) members have today voted overwhelmingly to bring back border controls in a blow to the Schengen free movement agreement.

That wasn't at all predictable...

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WARNING: The consumption of alcohol may create the illusion that you are tougher,smarter, faster and better looking than most people.Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. (H.L. Mencken 1919)Zero tolerance is the politics of the lazy. All it requires is that you do nothing and ban everything.

With the backing of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch?

I can see the attraction. It is the same attraction that saw Amsterdam relocate to London in 1689 in the first place. And the same thing that has kept the Europeans chasing the "Anglo-Saxons" ever since.

Curiously the Anglo-Saxons they claim to abhor so much are the people that voted Leave while the City folks, the heirs of the Dutch, Huguenots and Palatines, are the ones that voted to Stay. Funny old world.

Now, this is interesting.Seeing as I was unaware of these things, I expect lots of other people are as well.

Accepting as all the following as true, here are some examples, from a Brit friend, of why many people in Great Britain voted LEAVE.

Quote:Cadbury moved factory to Poland 2011 with EU grant.Ford Transit moved to Turkey 2013 with EU grant.Jaguar Land Rover has recently agreed to build a new plant in Slovakia with EU grant,Jaguar is owned by Tata, the same Indian company that trashed our steel works and emptied the workers pension funds.Peugeot closed its Ryton (was Rootes Group) plant and moved production to Slovakia with EU grant.British Army's new Ajax fighting vehicles to be built in SPAIN using SWEDISH steel at the request of the EU to support jobs in Spain with EU grant, rather than Wales.Dyson gone to Malaysia, with an EU loan.Crown Closures, Bournemouth (Was METAL BOX), gone to Poland with EU grant, once employed 1,200.M&S manufacturing gone to far east with EU loan.Hornby models gone. In fact all toys and models now gone from UK along with the patents all with EU grants.Gillette gone to eastern Europe with EU grant.Texas Instruments Greenock gone to Germany with EU grant.Indesit at Bodelwyddan Wales gone with EU grant.Sekisui Alveo said production at its Merthyr Tydfil Industrial Park foam plant will relocate production to Roermond in the Netherlands, with EU funding.Hoover Merthyr factory moved out of UK to Czech Republic and the Far East by Italian company Candy with EU backing.ICI integration into Holland's AkzoNobel with EU bank loan and within days of the merger, several factories in the UK, were closed, eliminating 3,500 jobsBoots sold to Italians Stefano Pessina who have based their HQ in Switzerland to avoid tax to the tune of Â£80 million a year, using an EU loan for the purchase.JDS Uniphase run by two Dutch men, bought up companies in the UK with Â£20 million in EU 'regeneration' grants, created a pollution nightmare and just closed it all down, leaving 1,200 out of work and an environmental clean-up paid for by the UK tax-payer. They also raided the pension fund and drained it dry.UK airports are owned by a Spanish company.Scottish Power is owned by a Spanish company.Most London buses are run by Spanish and German companies.The Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to be built by French company EDF, part owned by the French government, using cheap Chinese steel that has catastrophically failed in other nuclear installations. Now EDF say the costs will be double or more and it will be very late even if it does come online.Swindon was once our producer of rail locomotives and rolling stock. Not any more, it's Bombardier in Derby and due to their losses in the aviation market, that could see the end of the British railways manufacturing altogether, even though Bombardier had EU grants to keep Derby going which they diverted to their loss-making aviation side in Canada.39% of British invention patents have been passed to foreign companies, many of them in the EUThe Mini cars that Cameron stood in front of as an example of British engineering, are built by BMW mostly in Holland and Austria. Cameron's campaign bus was made in Germany even though we have Plaxton, Optare, Bluebird, > Dennis etc., in the UK.The bicycle for the Greens was made in the far east, not by Raleigh UK but then they are probably going to move to the Netherlands too as they have said recently.

Anyone who thinks the EU is good for British industry or any other business simply hasn't paid attention to what has been systematically asset-stripped from the UK. Name me one major technology company still running in the UK,

I used to contract out to many, then the work just dried up as they were sold off to companies from France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, etc. Now, we don't even teach electronic technology for technicians any more, due to EU regulations.

I haven't detailed the Brit non-existent fishing industry the EU paid to destroy, nor the farmers being paid NOT to produce food they could sell for more than they get paid to do nothing, Don't even go there.

I haven't mentioned what it costs us to be asset-stripped like this, nor have I mentioned immigration, nor the risk to our security if control of our armed forces is passed to Brussels or Germany.

Find something that's gone the other way, I've looked and I just can't find a single thing.

We used to marvel at the results of the EU Common Agricultural Policy while wandering 'in the cuds' in Northern Ireland.

Tiny little one or two field farms sporting spanking new infrastructure including reinforced concrete silage pits, shiny new tractors, huge paved driveways etc were home to 4 or 5 lonely head of cattle and a couple of elderly farmers. Our job being to watch these types of places closely from covert positions put us in the unique position of observing this waste of resources on a massive and unsustainable scale.

When you read about it now, it's a wonder why the US didn't try to invade 'Commie' Europe instead of Cuba:

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